The top 50 list from a What Car article is very different from that second list. I thinking believe WhatCar over a local newspaper which has taken data from a driving school blog.

I suspect the driving school blog has selected the kind of cars new drivers would buy. Many of the cars at the top end of the What Car list are sports or luxury cars, though some very ordinary cars too. I can't see many people passing their test and then going out to buy a Porsche 911 or Mercedes SL...

Whether the data is useful is a different question though. It's not surprising that almost every Porsche 911 has passed its MOT first time - these will generally be owned by people who will keep on top of maintenance.

It may be useful to know the relative pass rates of a Ford Focus to an Astra or a Golf though. If one does much better than the others is may say something about the durability of that car. However as many MOT fails are for things like wiper blades, tyres and light bulbs, it probably says as much about the owners as the quality of the cars themselves

Indeed - what would be much better would be weighted scores (see discussion above) and realistically to compare cars of the same type and spec. Much more useful when buying a car to (say) compare all the (likely similar) ones you are choosing from, including older versions of the same model if the current version is relatively new.

Our Micra had a bulb out in the 3rd brake light, never noticed it. Garage fixed it FOC.

Lucky you, I had one LED fail on my high level brake light, resulting in an MOT advisory. The next year, the whole damn thing had failed. MOT station told me it was a pass as it didn't exist.........................................................................................

I found out a new from the main dealer - £100!

I eventually sorted it by buying a strip of LEDs from ebay for a few bob, dismantling the old unit and squeezing them in. I now have an eleven LED high level brake light replacing the original six LED unit, that's not quite as bright.

Let's see what the next MOT shows.

Edited by bathtub tom on 28/09/2022 at 18:46